You Say You Want a Revolution? -- Taking Over the World, One City at a Time

Joel M. Rosenberg

This past year has been a political nightmare for MIT. In a vicious
cycle, the press came down hard on us, which caused the politicians to
speak out against us, which caused the administration to make decisions to
appease the press and politicians. Lost was the voice of the students, who
have the biggest stake in all of this.

I am convinced that the only way to stop this slippery slope is for MIT
students to take a stand by registering and voting here in Boston and
Cambridge. A new voting bloc of potentially thousands will spring up,
something neither the press nor the politicians will be able to ignore. And
if Harvard University, Boston University, and other area colleges follow
our lead, over the next few years we might be able to change the face of
this town. As Gary Wolf writes in September's Wired, "Revolutionary
excitement is always sparked when powerful information is suddenly shared."
Well, here's the information.

You should register to vote in the place you consider to be your
"home,"defined in the Massachusetts Election Resource Handbook as
"the center of a person's domestic, social and civil life." If
Massachusetts fits this description, you can register to vote immediately
if you're 18, a U.S.citizen, and have a Massachusetts address. Contrary to
popular belief, registering here doesn't require you to file taxes here or
to change your drivers license or vehicle registration.

Registration is easy thanks to the web. Until September 15, if you fill
out the online form at www.netvote98.mci.com, they'll mail you a completed
registration application which all you have to do is sign and drop back in
the mail - it's already addressed and postage paid. There will also be a
registration drive on campus on September 17.

The polls are easily within walking distance - most Boston residents
will vote at the Boston Public Library, and most Cambridge residents will
vote on campus, in Johnson Athletic Center or at the SalvationArmy on
Massachusetts Avenue.

If you'd like to vote here but are worried about giving up residency
where your parents live, I urge you to call your state elections division
to have your concerns addressed - often they are unfounded. People
receiving financial aid from their home state should definitely check on
the implications of changing residency. The numbers on this page are
starting points. Don't be discouraged if you're sent on a small goose chase
- much of the government is a bureaucratic mess.

If you'd rather vote back in your "home" state, call your elections
division to find out how to obtain an absentee ballot. You still have to
register, though, which you can do at netvote98.

"I've learned just how much, as a politician, you need to pay attention
to the people who vote. And if people don't vote, then the reality is that
politicians don't pay attention to them." The quote is from City Councilor
Tom Keane, who represents more than 800 MIT students living in Boston, and
who is currently running for Congress, where he would represent all MIT
students in both Boston and Cambridge. Keane won his last election by a
mere 27 votes, while most of his student constituents have probably never
heard of Keane.

Even worse, Boston Mayor Tom Menino was elected in 1993 with 74,448
votes, about 16 percent of the city's voting age population. Boston's
84,831 students (and who-knows-how-many twenty-somethings sympathetic to
students) could have been kingmakers if they had been organized. That's
even more interesting when you consider a candidate only has to be 18 to
run for mayor, and that last year, Menino ran unopposed for re-election, a
first in Boston politics.

Additionally, Massachusetts encourages citizen participation. It only
takes 200 signatures to get a non-binding question of public policy on the
ballot in a state representative district, and 1,200 in a state senate
district. Ballot questions to repeal a law require around 33,000
signatures, to amend the Massachusetts constitution around 65,000
signatures, and to actually propose a law to the voters for approval or
rejection around 65,000 signatures - these numbers change based on number
of votes last cast for governor. With some organization, students can take
the government into their own hands.

In Massachusetts, the primaries are really the important elections, and
unfortunately, the registration deadline has already passed. While we'll
have an influence on the regular November election, the point this year is
to boost election day turnout numbers and send a message to the politicians
that we will no longer be ignored. This is a year to set an example for
other schools to follow, and to start a tradition of student political
participation so that next time we will be registered for the
primaries.

Registrants shouldn't worry about not having enough information to vote
this fall - I'll make sure that there will be information provided
specifically for students to use when deciding for whom to vote. If you're
interested in helping, you can e-mail me at jrose@mit.edu.

My hope is to organize a perpetual association of Boston and Cambridge
students to act as a student lobby and report to students on local
government. From there we can look into issues like keeping the MBTA open
later (which hasn't been studied since 1960), getting rid of the blue laws,
and changing the resident parking requirements. While individuals change
from year to year, students remain a constant portion of the population,
and should have a voice to match.

This is the perfect opportunity for MIT to once again assert its
technological prowess by being the first school to register en masse
online. At last week's symposium on science in the next century, physicist
Michio Kaku stated his belief that the future of democracy, and thus the
world, will rely on the web. "That's what I think the web is all about,"he
stated. I agree, and am confident that while politics isn't our specialty,
it's possible for us to, as always, learn quickly, reengineer the system,
and dominate it.

Keane said, "It's certainly tragic in the sense that students are living
here, there are decisions being made that affect their basic quality of
life, and they're not involved." The time has come to get involved. City
Hall isn't meant to be fought - it's meant to execute the will of the
electorate. Now, all we have to do is become the electorate.